Westminster tinkers with Wikipedia

Full coverage of UK politicsFor some months now, the Conservative MP Stephen O'Brien has been whacking in written questions enquiring what changes have been made by staff and ministers across Whitehall to the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia.

Who has time to tweak the online encyclopedia?

Most of the time, the answer has come back that unearthing details of mandarins' cyber-surfing could not be provided except at disproportionate cost.

A noble exception yesterday was the Department for Culture Media and Sport, which released a full list of changes made.

So we learn that one civil servant altered a Wikipedia entry for 1990s dance act star Adamski, to correct the spelling of his real name (Adam Tinley, if you're interested).

Another helpfully created a new entry for the south London train station Brixton Hill.

A third criticised the contents of an entry about the writer James Fenton, warning "This article is VERY POORÂ…"

And they say civil service efficiency drive has cut staffing to the bone.

For some reason, this written answer has not been put up on the Parliamentary webside, so I can't share it with you in full.

But I can reveal an answer also obtained by Mr O'Brien to a similar question to the Department of Children, Families and Schools, which shows that the only person with time enough on his hands to tinker with Wikipedia was the minister, Lord Adonis, who "corrected" a page about himself.